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What would happen if the sea level rose 25 metres? What kind of planet would we live on if global temperatures went up two or three degrees Celsius?
A recent report by the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) makes depressing reading.It says the earth would be a totally different place if temperatures went up.
James Hansen who led the study explains that, “If warming is kept less than one degree Celsius, the effects of global warming may be relatively manageable.” But he said, “If it rose 2 to 3 degrees the sea level would be about 25 meters higher than today.”
What effects would a 25-metre increase in sea level have? Well, it would leave Shanghai’s under 23 metres of water.Its 17 million residents would have to leave, or be washed away.Around the world billions of people would have to give up their homes and jobs to escape floods.
Humans would not be the only ones affected.If global warming continues, animals and humans will be forced to share a much smaller amount of land.Moreover, along with the rise in world population, can you guess the result of more people living on less land? It will mean greater competition for resources like food and clean water.Competition could easily become conflict.
But Professor Thomas Gale Moore of Stanford University, California, US, disagrees.In an article titled “Why Global Warming Would be Good for You”, Moore argues that” 6,000 years ago the earth experienced much hotter temperatures? The desert was full of plants? There was plenty of water for humans and animals.”
NASA says the rise in temperature is related to so-called greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.But Moore claims this is wrong.“Some scientists believe that ‘polluting’ gasses cause temperatures to rise.In the past, temperatures rose before levels of gasses, not after gasses rose.”
The professor concludes that sea levels will rise by no more than 30 centimetres and this will not be noticed by most people around the world.
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